social

Facebook has updated its Graph Search feature to now include both posts and status updates, expanding the usefulness of the socially-enabled search engine as it digs through more online content. Revealed back in January, and rolled out across the US in July, Graph Search had until now only handled people, places, interests, and photos.

There is a serious problem going on currently with messages sent from some users via Google Hangouts. The problem is that some senders are seeing their chat messages sent to the wrong recipients. The problem has reportedly been occurring since about 4 PM EST.

Earlier this month Twitter submitted the paperwork required for its IPO to commence. One bit of information that we didn't know at the time Twitter announced it had filed its S-1 with the SEC for its IPO was which stock exchange would be handling the IPO for twitter. We have now learned that Twitter will be listing on the New York Stock Exchange.

Hisense is a Chinese company that makes all sorts of electronics products. The company has announced what it claims to be the world's first Internet connected smart air conditioner for home users. The air-conditioner was announced in connection with Chinese social networking site Weibo.

China has blocked access to Facebook from its populace for a long time. The reason for blocking Facebook access is that China doesn't want its citizens to have access to information that it deems unfit or unsavory. China recently announced that it was lifting the ban on Facebook, but only within the Shanghai free trade zone.

Facebook is trialling a new "Trending" topics section pulling together current hot topics on the social network, in a move that is unlikely to do anything to dismiss accusations that the site is copying Twitter. The new section shows around five currently topical subjects in the upper right corner of the Facebook news feed, though is "only available to a small percentage of US users" at present, a Facebook spokesperson confirmed.

It looks like both Microsoft and American Express are looking to invest in Foursquare. According to details coming from Bloomberg, the two companies are looking to take an equity stake in the company. The interesting part here, both companies are said to be competing against each other. That is, as opposed to going in on a joint bid.

Facebook has turned on post embedding for all users, as well as bolstering the social-spreading system with new features like video embeds and better performance on mobile device screens. Launched in late July, Facebook Embedded Posts were initially only available to select publishers in the social site's trial; now, though, any publisher can slot Facebook content into their articles or webpages.

Project management and online workspace service Podio just launched its new video and audio chat feature today that allows collaborators to communicate face-to-face (virtually). The new video and audio features are being added to Podio's current instant messaging service, and we took some time to give it a spin for ourselves.

Users love when things can be synced across multiple devices, so it should come as a big relief that a Twitter update today now includes syncing of direct messages across multiple devices. The update applies to a slew of platforms: Android, iPhone, iPod touch, Mac, the Twitter web interface, and the mobile web app, as well as TweetDeck.

In what is most likely a response to Instagram's recently-announced video features, Vine has added some hefty new features to its iOS app, including channels, new camera tools, as well as a "revining" feature that lets you share Vines on your own profile, similar to how retweets work.

Promoted content, sponsored posts, and other forms of advertisements are nothing new on social media websites, but services like Facebook and Twitter are constantly finding new ways to bring advertisements to their sites. Case in point: Twitter announced today that it will begin experimenting with ways to post promoted content from brands without showing more ads than there already are.